1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method for making an aluminum-based composite material.
2. Description of Related Art
Presently, aluminum-based composite material is attracting a great deal of attention for its good specific strength, specific stiffness, abrasion resistance, and high temperature resistance. The properties of the aluminum-based composite material relates to a size of reinforcements dispersed in the aluminum-based composite material. The smaller the size of the reinforcements, the better the properties of the aluminum-based composite material, but the reinforcements are not easily dispersed into the aluminum-based composite material uniformly because the size of the reinforcements is too small.
To address the above-described problem, a high intensity ultrasonic processing can effectively disperse the reinforcements. During the high intensity ultrasonic processing, a mechanical effect of an ultrasonic cavitation effect can hasten the dispersion of the reinforcements into the aluminum-based material, but the high intensity ultrasonic processing can only disperse the reinforcements in very localized areas. The reinforcements trend to stay on a surface of the aluminum-based material and are not easily dispersed uniformly in all the aluminum-based material. In many local areas, a density of the reinforcements may be different.
What is needed, therefore, is to provide a method for making an aluminum-based composite material in which the nanoscale reinforcements are dispersed uniformly.